understood not Latin. Indeed, the Roman laws allowed no person to
be carried to the wars but he that was in the soldiers' roll. And,
therefore, though Cato misliked his unmustered person, he misliked
not his work. And if he had, Scipio Nasica (judged by common
consent the best Roman) loved him: both the other Scipio brothers,
who had by their virtues no less surnames than of Asia and Afric, so
loved him that they caused his body to be buried in their sepulture.
So, as Cato's authority being but against his person, and that
answered with so far greater than himself, is herein of no validity.

But {70} now, indeed, my burthen is great, that Plato's name is laid
upon me, whom, I must confess, of all philosophers I have ever
esteemed most worthy of reverence; and with good reason, since of
all philosophers he is the most poetical; yet if he will defile the
fountain out of which his flowing streams have proceeded, let us
boldly examine with what reason he did it.

First, truly, a man might maliciously object that Plato, being a
philosopher, was a natural enemy of poets. For, indeed, after the
philosophers had picked out of the sweet mysteries of poetry the
right discerning of true points of knowledge, they forthwith,
putting it in method, and making a school of art of that which the
poets did only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning to spurn
at their guides, like ungrateful apprentices, were not content to
set up shop for themselves, but sought by all means to discredit
their masters; which, by the force of delight being barred them, the
less they could overthrow them, the more they hated them. For,
indeed, they found for Homer seven cities strove who should have him
for their citizen, where many cities banished philosophers as not
fit members to live among them. For only repeating certain of